Dexter - it's been a while
Sep. 13th, 2010 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
next_to_normalI wasn't quite as into this season for some reason, and I can't put my finger on why. There were certainly things that didn't work for me, but no more than any other season. Maybe it's because I took such a long break - I watched the first three seasons pretty much back to back, but it's been a while since I checked in with Dexter. Anyway, many, many (epic-length) detailed thoughts under the cut.
After last season, with marrying Rita and the baby on the way, I worried a bit about how becoming a family man would sand away Dexter's rough edges, and that proved to be a well-placed fear at the beginning of the season. I definitely didn't need the silliness of the suburban neighborhood arc - the whole "who's the vandal?" thing was pointless and I found it absolutely ridiculous that Dexter, a seasoned serial killer, can evade detection by the police while working in their midst, but he has trouble evading the freakin' amateur neighborhood watch. Dexter's utter exhaustion was realistic, as anyone with a new baby will tell you, but having him screw up in court totally hit my embarrassment squick. I was literally squirming with discomfort during that scene, so I'm glad they dropped that pretty quickly.
I am also glad that they dropped Rita's nagging wife routine, because that was just painful to watch. I mean, she really got into the realm of raging bitch for a while there. Overall, I am very disappointed with what they've done (or rather, not done) with Rita's character the past two seasons. She was a great character when she was first introduced, but I guess they couldn't be bothered with giving her interesting things to do, and so they completely dropped the damaged victim aspect of her character. She became well-adjusted practically overnight, and now seems dead-set on fulfilling every annoying female stereotype - the cranky pregnant woman, the nagging wife, the cheating wife, and now it looks like she's been fridged. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Dexter's arc definitely picked up once he got involved with Trinity. I could see echoes of season 1 in his admiration of Trinity as a serial killer - though with the Ice Truck Killer, it was just the thrill of playing a game, whereas here, Dexter feels he has something to learn about integrating his different lives. Which is fine as an excuse to keep Trinity alive, though I've never been convinced that Dexter was as detached or misanthropic as he tends to think he is - that's not to say he's normal or anything, because he's still a serial killer and he's mostly hopeless at social interaction, but for quite a while now, I have tended to see Dexter as an unreliable narrator when he talks about how he's emotionless and only capable of superficial relationships. It was clear all the way back in season 1 that he truly cared for Deb, at least, and his affection for Rita and the kids is obviously genuine now, even if it started out as simply a cover story. And he seemed to have a breakthrough at the end of last season where he realized he did actually love his unborn son.
This season, the neighborhood watch episode tried to hit the whole "Dexter will never fit in" thing especially hard, but it was anvilicious and clumsy, and it gets completely undermined later in the season when Dexter ends up being the most emotional he's ever been, first turning Trinity into a personal vendetta because Deb was shot, and then operating from an apparently sincere desire to save the kidnapped boy and protect both his own family and the Mitchells from Arthur. Apparently, even Dexter agrees with me, since he really seems to want to change (which he never did before), and in the last episode, he's seriously considering the idea that he might someday be rid of his Dark Passenger (sidebar: it's tempting to create a drinking game for this show with all the DP references).
That doesn't mean I think he'll ever live a normal life, if for no other reason than that it would be a really boring show if the lead character was just a nerdy blood spatter analyst. :) But I do think that Dexter needs that conflict. Season 1, though I enjoyed it, is definitely lacking in that sense - Dexter is totally complacent with his serial killing, and he's just going through the motions with everything else, so all that matters is not getting caught, and he's got the Code for that. There's not a lot of emotional investment on Dexter's part, so there's very little on the audience's part.
But as he develops deeper attachments to people, he becomes conflicted. Now he's torn in two directions - he's compelled to keep killing, but he knows how devastating it will be for his family and friends if he's caught. He realizes that what he does sometimes puts them in danger - and that matters to him. He will take risks, even violate the Code, to protect them. And he's also realized the value of forming attachments to people who understand him (Brian, Lila, Miguel, Arthur), even if it makes him vulnerable and always ends up biting him in the ass. I've seen people complain about Dexter becoming too cuddly, that he's not as creepy and emotionless as he used to be (or as he is in the books). And I certainly don't need more Suburban Dad Dexter, but IMO, Dexter is a much more interesting character when he's being pulled in these different directions, even if it means that he's not quite as sociopathic as he started out in the beginning. (And I think he's still plenty creepy - I find the subtle touches, like when Dexter doesn't know how to react to things, to be much more effective than the sledgehammer approach.)
ANYWAY. Back to this season's review. There's some very interesting irony in Dexter trying to learn how to juggle being a serial killer and a family man from someone who's actually even less adjusted than Dexter is. I thought the reveal that the Mitchell family was totally dysfunctional and victims of Arthur's abuse was very creepy and well-done. Though I did think they went a little too far in demonizing Arthur in order to keep a wide distance between him and Dexter, whom we're supposed to be sympathizing with. John Lithgow is fantastic and did a brilliant job with the role, but around his family he's almost cartoonish at times in his villainy - much like Miguel turned out to be last season, once he and Dexter became enemies. I wish the writers would be more confident in their protagonist and trust that we won't lose our loyalty if Dexter seems too similar to his victims. We're watching a show about a serial killer, for Christ's sake, I think we're okay with morality being a very, very dark shade of grey.
As I mentioned, this is the most emotional we've ever seen Dexter - he is absolutely desperate when Deb gets shot, and his pursuit of Trinity often seems driven more by anger than a simple need to fulfill his killer urges. We see Dexter deliberately going outside the Code, killing the truck driver as a means to misdirect the police, which has echoes of Doakes in season 2, but with some significant differences - killing Doakes was partially self-preservation (Doakes could've exposed him), whereas the truck driver was chosen primarily as a diversion, with only the one prior hooker-murder to salve what passes for Dexter's conscience. And of course, Dexter didn't actually kill Doakes himself, Lila did.
Also, for the first time, Dexter completely abandons any pretense of cleaning up after the police by disposing of the criminals they can't catch. Instead, this is personal. He has decided that Trinity is his to kill, and he goes so far as to deliberately obstruct the police investigation so they won't catch him, allowing Dexter to do the honors. I should also note that becoming more human makes Dexter a much sloppier serial killer - in the beginning of the season it seemed like his family responsibilities would get in the way, but really it's Dexter's emotions that screw him up. He's so desperate to kill Arthur that he doesn't seem to care how sloppy he's being. I laughed out loud when Arthur suggested Dexter give up vigilantism.
But we end up pretty much where we expected to since the first episode of the season - with Trinity saran-wrapped to Dexter's table. I really think it's time for this show to change up its formula. When we saw that shot of Arthur driving down the road, I actually for a second thought they might let him get away, or the FBI would pick him up in another state or something, but either way, Dexter wouldn't get to kill him. Alas, that wasn't the case, but it made me think what a surprise ending that would be if, for once, the bad guy didn't end up saran-wrapped. But there was one surprise in this finale...
Okay, let's talk about Rita. In the interest of full disclosure, I knew she was going to die - in fact, I've known since before I watched season 3. I accidentally read a spoiler on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fanficrants (sidebar: how do you link to LJ communities on DW?) that suggested she was up for the chop, but for some reason, I assumed it would happen at the end of season 3, and it was vague enough that when season 3 ended with her very much alive, I thought maybe I'd interpreted it wrong. But then I got spoiled again, this time on one of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
goldenusagi's posts, so at that point I was sure it would happen.
And I expected to hate it. I hated the very idea of it. Partly because it plays into so many frustrating tropes, but it especially pissed me off because I could see the writers saying to themselves, "Well, Rita's obviously run out of interesting things to do, so we might as well kill her off." And that pissed me off because, as I mentioned above, I think Rita has been terribly misused for the last two seasons. I certainly didn't enjoy the developments with her, but I wanted a better arc for her, not to have her just killed off.
But the way they did it, I don't know. It was always going to have a fridging aspect to it, since Dexter's the protagonist and Rita's death is obviously going to be about how it affects him. (I also can't ignore that 24 did it first, lol.) But I do appreciate that it brings Dexter's character full circle. I kind of love the symmetry of Harrison being "born in blood" just like Dexter. I loved the parallel shots of Dexter scooping him up off the floor just as Harry did for him. And it sets up the possibility of a much darker, more conflicted Dexter next season - there he was thinking he might someday be normal, only to have his past smack him in the face. I'll be curious where that takes him, though I'll be disappointed if this is just an excuse to erase his development and have him simply revert back to season 1 when he was unconflicted. I need Dexter to be fundamentally changed because of what's happened.
Either way, I am very sad that Julie Benz won't be on the show anymore (or maybe she will - I could stand to see a little ghost!Rita in place of Harry), because she is awesome, even if she was underused. I am curious what will happen to Astor and Cody next season - will they live with their grandparents now, or will Dexter try to raise three kids as a single parent? I can't imagine there's any territory there that raising three kids with Rita didn't cover this season. But it would be great to see the impact Rita's death has on them, particularly since her death is partially Dexter's fault for dragging his ass on killing Trinity, so I kind of want them around as constant reminders that Dexter destroyed his family just like Arthur did.
I have to give major props to Jennifer Carpenter, since I think this is the first time I actually liked Deb for most of the season. I enjoyed new, happy Deb in the beginning, and although she unfortunately regressed when Lundy showed up, Carpenter turned in some top-notch performances in coping with his death, confronting Christine, and dealing with the Laura Moser revelation. (I must note that a lot of her best scenes are with Dexter, and as much as it kinda weird me out to know that they're married in real life, I wonder if that's helping, because I've honestly never thought much of Jennifer Carpenter's acting until this season.)
I'm glad that we're finally making some progress on Deb learning some of Dexter's secrets. I figured that she'd uncover just enough to make the connection between Dexter and the Ice Truck Killer, but not find out anything about Dexter's extracurricular activities. But it seemed rather anticlimactic when it actually happened. Deb: "Dude, the Ice Truck Killer was your brother!" Dex: "Oh, sh- Wait. Is that all?" I hope Deb keeps digging and finds out something that troubles her a little bit more. I am curious how Dexter will explain the fact that Rita was killed using Trinity's MO, so maybe a personal connection to multiple serial killers will finally get the wheels turning for Deb.
I was also pretty happy to see Agent Lundy back (albeit briefly), even if it meant the departure of hot Anton. I still didn't particularly care about Deb and Lundy as a couple (Deb's daddy issues creep me out), but Lundy was the only one who seemed to pose any threat to Dexter, and so the tension whenever those two were in a scene together was awesome.
Although, in retrospect, Lundy's mad FBI skillz seem to be wildly inconsistent. In season 2, he managed to profile the Bay Harbor Butcher to a T - but then accepted that Doakes, who totally didn't fit the profile, was the killer. And he sometimes seems suspicious of Dexter, but never acts on it, and then he turns around and seems to trust Dexter pretty implicitly. Here, he completely misprofiles Trinity, but somehow manages to recognize the man when he's standing in front of him because of "something in his eyes." (John Lithgow definitely has the crazy eyes, though, lol.) I give up - is Lundy supposed to be a brilliant investigator or not??? Oh, well, he's dead anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter.
I could not possibly care less about the romantic liaisons in the police station. I should note that way back in season 1, I said I wouldn't mind a LaGuerta/Angel ship, but holy god, if I knew they'd be this boring, I'd never have said it. I am also sad things didn't work out with Angel and that nice cop from viceomg I sound like my grandmother. I guess the show didn't want to bother paying for guest stars, so they just figured they could kill two birds with one stone by putting these two together? I also thought that, as a secondary case, their vacation murders thing was really lame. I actually didn't even remember how it got resolved - I had to go back and look it up, that's how irrelevant it was. Either give the cases equal time and/or an intersection point (like Miguel and the Skinner last season), or just drop it altogether. Using it simply as a diversion and a red herring is really annoying.
Quinn's reporter girlfriend turning out to be Trinity's daughter was something I never saw coming, but that doesn't mean it was worth the tedious scenes of them being naked and annoying. I also didn't get what was up with Quinn's bizarre hostility toward Dexter this whole season. I'm hoping it's because Quinn is starting to be suspicious of Dexter and not just that Quinn's an enormous asshole, because I thought we sorted that one out last year. (I swear, with this show, it's like characters start over every season, and no matter how much I liked them by the end of the prior one, I detest them again for at least the first few episodes. I guess that means I should expect to hate Deb again next season?)
Finally, I am incredibly tired of ghost!Harry, and I think he needs to go. Yeah, yeah, he's the manifestation of Dexter's subconscious or his Dark Passenger (drink!) or whatever, but the device has way outlived its cleverness. At this point, the craziest thing about Dexter is that he has long, drawn-out arguments with people who aren't there, which kinda undermines the whole serial killer thing, you know? I can understand why they feel the need to use Harry, because otherwise we'd have a lot of scenes with Dexter talking to himself, but they end up telling us stuff they've already shown us, or that is blatantly obvious to anyone with half a brain cell. The voice over is more than sufficient (for reals, they could cut back on that, too), and I wish they would just trust the audience to pick up on stuff without having it spelled out for them. I also think they need to let up on the Dark Passenger schtick. I know it's a huge part of the books, but it's turning into an annoying catchphrase, and also I'm going to get incredibly drunk.
So, now that I'm all caught up, link me to your Dexter posts, if you've got 'em. I haven't decided yet what to do about the next season. (When does it air anyway?) I don't have Showtime and have no intention of paying for it, and I may have a full enough schedule to wait for the DVDs again, or I might get super impatient. We'll see.
After last season, with marrying Rita and the baby on the way, I worried a bit about how becoming a family man would sand away Dexter's rough edges, and that proved to be a well-placed fear at the beginning of the season. I definitely didn't need the silliness of the suburban neighborhood arc - the whole "who's the vandal?" thing was pointless and I found it absolutely ridiculous that Dexter, a seasoned serial killer, can evade detection by the police while working in their midst, but he has trouble evading the freakin' amateur neighborhood watch. Dexter's utter exhaustion was realistic, as anyone with a new baby will tell you, but having him screw up in court totally hit my embarrassment squick. I was literally squirming with discomfort during that scene, so I'm glad they dropped that pretty quickly.
I am also glad that they dropped Rita's nagging wife routine, because that was just painful to watch. I mean, she really got into the realm of raging bitch for a while there. Overall, I am very disappointed with what they've done (or rather, not done) with Rita's character the past two seasons. She was a great character when she was first introduced, but I guess they couldn't be bothered with giving her interesting things to do, and so they completely dropped the damaged victim aspect of her character. She became well-adjusted practically overnight, and now seems dead-set on fulfilling every annoying female stereotype - the cranky pregnant woman, the nagging wife, the cheating wife, and now it looks like she's been fridged. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Dexter's arc definitely picked up once he got involved with Trinity. I could see echoes of season 1 in his admiration of Trinity as a serial killer - though with the Ice Truck Killer, it was just the thrill of playing a game, whereas here, Dexter feels he has something to learn about integrating his different lives. Which is fine as an excuse to keep Trinity alive, though I've never been convinced that Dexter was as detached or misanthropic as he tends to think he is - that's not to say he's normal or anything, because he's still a serial killer and he's mostly hopeless at social interaction, but for quite a while now, I have tended to see Dexter as an unreliable narrator when he talks about how he's emotionless and only capable of superficial relationships. It was clear all the way back in season 1 that he truly cared for Deb, at least, and his affection for Rita and the kids is obviously genuine now, even if it started out as simply a cover story. And he seemed to have a breakthrough at the end of last season where he realized he did actually love his unborn son.
This season, the neighborhood watch episode tried to hit the whole "Dexter will never fit in" thing especially hard, but it was anvilicious and clumsy, and it gets completely undermined later in the season when Dexter ends up being the most emotional he's ever been, first turning Trinity into a personal vendetta because Deb was shot, and then operating from an apparently sincere desire to save the kidnapped boy and protect both his own family and the Mitchells from Arthur. Apparently, even Dexter agrees with me, since he really seems to want to change (which he never did before), and in the last episode, he's seriously considering the idea that he might someday be rid of his Dark Passenger (sidebar: it's tempting to create a drinking game for this show with all the DP references).
That doesn't mean I think he'll ever live a normal life, if for no other reason than that it would be a really boring show if the lead character was just a nerdy blood spatter analyst. :) But I do think that Dexter needs that conflict. Season 1, though I enjoyed it, is definitely lacking in that sense - Dexter is totally complacent with his serial killing, and he's just going through the motions with everything else, so all that matters is not getting caught, and he's got the Code for that. There's not a lot of emotional investment on Dexter's part, so there's very little on the audience's part.
But as he develops deeper attachments to people, he becomes conflicted. Now he's torn in two directions - he's compelled to keep killing, but he knows how devastating it will be for his family and friends if he's caught. He realizes that what he does sometimes puts them in danger - and that matters to him. He will take risks, even violate the Code, to protect them. And he's also realized the value of forming attachments to people who understand him (Brian, Lila, Miguel, Arthur), even if it makes him vulnerable and always ends up biting him in the ass. I've seen people complain about Dexter becoming too cuddly, that he's not as creepy and emotionless as he used to be (or as he is in the books). And I certainly don't need more Suburban Dad Dexter, but IMO, Dexter is a much more interesting character when he's being pulled in these different directions, even if it means that he's not quite as sociopathic as he started out in the beginning. (And I think he's still plenty creepy - I find the subtle touches, like when Dexter doesn't know how to react to things, to be much more effective than the sledgehammer approach.)
ANYWAY. Back to this season's review. There's some very interesting irony in Dexter trying to learn how to juggle being a serial killer and a family man from someone who's actually even less adjusted than Dexter is. I thought the reveal that the Mitchell family was totally dysfunctional and victims of Arthur's abuse was very creepy and well-done. Though I did think they went a little too far in demonizing Arthur in order to keep a wide distance between him and Dexter, whom we're supposed to be sympathizing with. John Lithgow is fantastic and did a brilliant job with the role, but around his family he's almost cartoonish at times in his villainy - much like Miguel turned out to be last season, once he and Dexter became enemies. I wish the writers would be more confident in their protagonist and trust that we won't lose our loyalty if Dexter seems too similar to his victims. We're watching a show about a serial killer, for Christ's sake, I think we're okay with morality being a very, very dark shade of grey.
As I mentioned, this is the most emotional we've ever seen Dexter - he is absolutely desperate when Deb gets shot, and his pursuit of Trinity often seems driven more by anger than a simple need to fulfill his killer urges. We see Dexter deliberately going outside the Code, killing the truck driver as a means to misdirect the police, which has echoes of Doakes in season 2, but with some significant differences - killing Doakes was partially self-preservation (Doakes could've exposed him), whereas the truck driver was chosen primarily as a diversion, with only the one prior hooker-murder to salve what passes for Dexter's conscience. And of course, Dexter didn't actually kill Doakes himself, Lila did.
Also, for the first time, Dexter completely abandons any pretense of cleaning up after the police by disposing of the criminals they can't catch. Instead, this is personal. He has decided that Trinity is his to kill, and he goes so far as to deliberately obstruct the police investigation so they won't catch him, allowing Dexter to do the honors. I should also note that becoming more human makes Dexter a much sloppier serial killer - in the beginning of the season it seemed like his family responsibilities would get in the way, but really it's Dexter's emotions that screw him up. He's so desperate to kill Arthur that he doesn't seem to care how sloppy he's being. I laughed out loud when Arthur suggested Dexter give up vigilantism.
But we end up pretty much where we expected to since the first episode of the season - with Trinity saran-wrapped to Dexter's table. I really think it's time for this show to change up its formula. When we saw that shot of Arthur driving down the road, I actually for a second thought they might let him get away, or the FBI would pick him up in another state or something, but either way, Dexter wouldn't get to kill him. Alas, that wasn't the case, but it made me think what a surprise ending that would be if, for once, the bad guy didn't end up saran-wrapped. But there was one surprise in this finale...
Okay, let's talk about Rita. In the interest of full disclosure, I knew she was going to die - in fact, I've known since before I watched season 3. I accidentally read a spoiler on
fanficrants (sidebar: how do you link to LJ communities on DW?) that suggested she was up for the chop, but for some reason, I assumed it would happen at the end of season 3, and it was vague enough that when season 3 ended with her very much alive, I thought maybe I'd interpreted it wrong. But then I got spoiled again, this time on one of goldenusagi's posts, so at that point I was sure it would happen.And I expected to hate it. I hated the very idea of it. Partly because it plays into so many frustrating tropes, but it especially pissed me off because I could see the writers saying to themselves, "Well, Rita's obviously run out of interesting things to do, so we might as well kill her off." And that pissed me off because, as I mentioned above, I think Rita has been terribly misused for the last two seasons. I certainly didn't enjoy the developments with her, but I wanted a better arc for her, not to have her just killed off.
But the way they did it, I don't know. It was always going to have a fridging aspect to it, since Dexter's the protagonist and Rita's death is obviously going to be about how it affects him. (I also can't ignore that 24 did it first, lol.) But I do appreciate that it brings Dexter's character full circle. I kind of love the symmetry of Harrison being "born in blood" just like Dexter. I loved the parallel shots of Dexter scooping him up off the floor just as Harry did for him. And it sets up the possibility of a much darker, more conflicted Dexter next season - there he was thinking he might someday be normal, only to have his past smack him in the face. I'll be curious where that takes him, though I'll be disappointed if this is just an excuse to erase his development and have him simply revert back to season 1 when he was unconflicted. I need Dexter to be fundamentally changed because of what's happened.
Either way, I am very sad that Julie Benz won't be on the show anymore (or maybe she will - I could stand to see a little ghost!Rita in place of Harry), because she is awesome, even if she was underused. I am curious what will happen to Astor and Cody next season - will they live with their grandparents now, or will Dexter try to raise three kids as a single parent? I can't imagine there's any territory there that raising three kids with Rita didn't cover this season. But it would be great to see the impact Rita's death has on them, particularly since her death is partially Dexter's fault for dragging his ass on killing Trinity, so I kind of want them around as constant reminders that Dexter destroyed his family just like Arthur did.
I have to give major props to Jennifer Carpenter, since I think this is the first time I actually liked Deb for most of the season. I enjoyed new, happy Deb in the beginning, and although she unfortunately regressed when Lundy showed up, Carpenter turned in some top-notch performances in coping with his death, confronting Christine, and dealing with the Laura Moser revelation. (I must note that a lot of her best scenes are with Dexter, and as much as it kinda weird me out to know that they're married in real life, I wonder if that's helping, because I've honestly never thought much of Jennifer Carpenter's acting until this season.)
I'm glad that we're finally making some progress on Deb learning some of Dexter's secrets. I figured that she'd uncover just enough to make the connection between Dexter and the Ice Truck Killer, but not find out anything about Dexter's extracurricular activities. But it seemed rather anticlimactic when it actually happened. Deb: "Dude, the Ice Truck Killer was your brother!" Dex: "Oh, sh- Wait. Is that all?" I hope Deb keeps digging and finds out something that troubles her a little bit more. I am curious how Dexter will explain the fact that Rita was killed using Trinity's MO, so maybe a personal connection to multiple serial killers will finally get the wheels turning for Deb.
I was also pretty happy to see Agent Lundy back (albeit briefly), even if it meant the departure of hot Anton. I still didn't particularly care about Deb and Lundy as a couple (Deb's daddy issues creep me out), but Lundy was the only one who seemed to pose any threat to Dexter, and so the tension whenever those two were in a scene together was awesome.
Although, in retrospect, Lundy's mad FBI skillz seem to be wildly inconsistent. In season 2, he managed to profile the Bay Harbor Butcher to a T - but then accepted that Doakes, who totally didn't fit the profile, was the killer. And he sometimes seems suspicious of Dexter, but never acts on it, and then he turns around and seems to trust Dexter pretty implicitly. Here, he completely misprofiles Trinity, but somehow manages to recognize the man when he's standing in front of him because of "something in his eyes." (John Lithgow definitely has the crazy eyes, though, lol.) I give up - is Lundy supposed to be a brilliant investigator or not??? Oh, well, he's dead anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter.
I could not possibly care less about the romantic liaisons in the police station. I should note that way back in season 1, I said I wouldn't mind a LaGuerta/Angel ship, but holy god, if I knew they'd be this boring, I'd never have said it. I am also sad things didn't work out with Angel and that nice cop from vice
Quinn's reporter girlfriend turning out to be Trinity's daughter was something I never saw coming, but that doesn't mean it was worth the tedious scenes of them being naked and annoying. I also didn't get what was up with Quinn's bizarre hostility toward Dexter this whole season. I'm hoping it's because Quinn is starting to be suspicious of Dexter and not just that Quinn's an enormous asshole, because I thought we sorted that one out last year. (I swear, with this show, it's like characters start over every season, and no matter how much I liked them by the end of the prior one, I detest them again for at least the first few episodes. I guess that means I should expect to hate Deb again next season?)
Finally, I am incredibly tired of ghost!Harry, and I think he needs to go. Yeah, yeah, he's the manifestation of Dexter's subconscious or his Dark Passenger (drink!) or whatever, but the device has way outlived its cleverness. At this point, the craziest thing about Dexter is that he has long, drawn-out arguments with people who aren't there, which kinda undermines the whole serial killer thing, you know? I can understand why they feel the need to use Harry, because otherwise we'd have a lot of scenes with Dexter talking to himself, but they end up telling us stuff they've already shown us, or that is blatantly obvious to anyone with half a brain cell. The voice over is more than sufficient (for reals, they could cut back on that, too), and I wish they would just trust the audience to pick up on stuff without having it spelled out for them. I also think they need to let up on the Dark Passenger schtick. I know it's a huge part of the books, but it's turning into an annoying catchphrase, and also I'm going to get incredibly drunk.
So, now that I'm all caught up, link me to your Dexter posts, if you've got 'em. I haven't decided yet what to do about the next season. (When does it air anyway?) I don't have Showtime and have no intention of paying for it, and I may have a full enough schedule to wait for the DVDs again, or I might get super impatient. We'll see.
no subject
Date: Sep. 13th, 2010 05:54 pm (UTC)http://goldenusagi.livejournal.com/149181.html
no subject
Date: Sep. 14th, 2010 01:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Sep. 25th, 2010 11:22 pm (UTC)First, I LOVE the episode where he kills the lady cop. I just thought it was all kinds of amazing. From the scene where she threatens to shoot him in the gas station bathroom and he starts listing all the ways that she'll end up looking guilty from the blood spatter to the scene with her on the table. That conversation is all kinds of quotable. "What kind of husband does this? What kind of father?" "Not the kind that kills his family." / "You can't hide what you are." "I can. I'm better at it than you." And it was an interesting parallel because it was someone who had killed their family because they couldn't deal with, just as Dexter was feeling boxed in by his family.
Oh, and the episode where he was trying to find the boy Trinity kidnapped was also awesome. I loved the imagery of him pulling the bag with the boy in it up from the wet concrete.
Let's see...
I was very glad the season started with the baby already born. But the domestic problems were overdone a little in the beginning, IMO. Especially the neighborhood watch thing. And also, Rita being a stay at home mom and expecting Dexter to do all of this other stuff, when he's the one who was paying for that nice house they have now. It would have been different if they were both working and were splitting baby duties. Oh, and I hated the interested neighbor guy. That's the only plot she gets? Lonely wife in surburbia and neighbor who's into her?
I do like how on the surface, Trinity's family life seems like something Dexter wants to learn from. Only to realize that Trinity has completely terrorized and fucked up everyone around him. Though I'm not sure how he's managed to stay hidden for so long. It doesn't seem to take much to make him emotionally errupt. Has he never done this around anyone but his family? He doesn't have the control Dexter does, is all I'm saying. Also, upon the first watching, I sort of thought they could have gotten two killers out of Trinity's character. One who is a lone, perfect killer, and one who is an abusive family man. Or just one who is a family man. I think the reveal of Trinity having a family was neat, but he's nowhere near the perfect, emotionless killer that he was profiled as.
I'm largely indifferent to the characters' love lives. I never really cared who Deb was dating or who Angel was dating, etc. Though I did like the girl from vice, LOL.
Quinn's reporter girlfriend turning out to be Trinity's daughter was something I never saw coming, but that doesn't mean it was worth the tedious scenes of them being naked and annoying.
Practically all of her scenes were sex scenes. And I never expected the reveal that she was related to Trinity, though from episode 4 or 5, I did wonder if she was the shooter. Because there had to be some reason for her to be there, LOL. But even as Trinity's daughter, it still leaves so many questions. Where did she learn to shoot like that, for one.
no subject
Date: Sep. 26th, 2010 12:30 am (UTC)The ep with the lady cop was pretty cool, although I never thought there was any chance of Dexter killing his family, so the parallels seemed like a bit of a stretch at times. But it was definitely good for Dexter to have a worthy opponent for the kill of the week, and the gas station bathroom scene was fantastic. :)
And also, Rita being a stay at home mom and expecting Dexter to do all of this other stuff, when he's the one who was paying for that nice house they have now.
Ahhhhhh, yes OMG! Way to make me hate Rita even more.
Though I'm not sure how he's managed to stay hidden for so long. It doesn't seem to take much to make him emotionally errupt.
YES. I thought the same thing. It wasn't very believable that he could've gone this long and not tripped anyone's suspicion. That's kind of what I meant about the cartoonishness - it would've been so much better if they'd been more subtle with the abuse of his family.
no subject
Date: Sep. 26th, 2010 11:12 am (UTC)I really don't know how Trinity never set off anyone's "weird" alarm before. Because he snaps so easily! I can't believe that if that's his character that he hasn't been caught already. Also, in the beginning of the season, I was looking forward to Dexter playing games with another perfect, mastermind serial killer--not crazy guy who flips out and carries around his sister's ashes. Especially since we had crazy Miguel last season (who I liked, but still, crazy) and crazy Lila before that.